


Heart and Home Pt 2

by Casey_K



Series: Heart and Home [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Deviates From Canon, Established Relationship, Fanfiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 20:26:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2401799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casey_K/pseuds/Casey_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow up to 'Heart and Home' NCIS LA Crossover. </p><p>Danny has no idea how his reunion with Steve will go. Steve has been away a long time and although Danny can't imagine life without him, he knows things have to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart and Home Pt 2

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who needed to know how that first meeting with Steve went once Danny made it back to Hawaii...
> 
> Don't own the characters. This work is not-for-profit. 
> 
> Not beta'd. Please forgive typos.

It’d been a long flight and Danny really wasn’t looking forward to facing Steve. The closer he got to Steve’s house the more his stomach twisted in knots. He’d considered going back to his apartment, but most of the things he needed were at Steve’s from where he’d moved in to keep an eye on the place. It wasn’t anything to do with the fact that surrounding himself with Steve’s things, and sleeping in Steve’s bed helped to stave off the thought the stupid fucker might never come back, no, he was just being practical. And looking over the Shelburne files to see whether he could pick up on anything not previously noted, again, just being practical. It wasn’t anything to do with trying to track Steve around the world, or grasping at anything to try and feel included, nope, definitely not. And of course, Steve hadn’t known Danny was staying at his place. But then there was no way to know if he was home yet anyway. 

Danny paid the taxi and trudged up the drive. Even though it was barely the afternoon, he wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for a week. The sun was typically bright and tried to shine a cheerful light over the world but Danny had thunder clouds directly over his head like a cartoon character and he couldn’t shake just feeling miserable. He’d left the Camaro on the drive, so if Steve was back he’d be expecting Danny at some point. He knew as soon as he opened the front door that Steve was there. The tension bled through the rooms like a tidal wave. He dropped his bag and closed the front door softly. By the time he turned around Steve’s long, tall shape had appeared, leaning against the arch to the kitchen. He looked thinner. Tired in a way Danny had never seen before. “Hey,” Steve said, his voice rough with emotion. 

The air was stifling. Danny felt as though he were trying to breathe underwater with a huge pressure squeezing his chest. “I just needed to call by for my stuff. I’ll be out of your hair in ten minutes.” Danny didn’t meet Steve’s gaze but he could feel the hurt his words caused and it flared the anger he’d managed to repress on the flight home. How dare Steve be upset after what he’d put Danny through but even that wouldn’t come out. His emotions were all stoppered up and stuck behind his ribs. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Wo Fat is in custody.” Steve made a slow, tentative move into the room and sat on the arm of the sofa. “You did good, with the Smallpox case.” Danny looked over and Steve offered a nervous smile. “Kono brought me up to date.”

“It was touch and go for a while, but yeah, we did good.” California seemed like a lifetime away already. “Sam says you owe him dinner.”  
Steve flinched a little. “That’s from a long time ago, Danny. I wouldn’t…” Steve seemed to realise that hadn’t been what Danny was looking for, and pinched his lips. It did confirm Danny’s suspicion that Steve and Sam had history. But hey, if they both got hung up on every ex they rubbed shoulders with it was going to be one hell of a bumpy ride. More so than they could do on their own, and that was saying something.

“He did suggest I pay up on your behalf. Shame I didn’t realise what he was suggesting.” Oh yes, that riled Steve more than a little. So Steve could feel jealousy, did care about what Danny was up to and with whom. A twist of guilt hit Danny deep in his gut but he pushed it to one side. 

“Is this how it’s going to be?” Steve relaxed the fists he’d made and brushed over his thigh instead. “Or can we talk about it?”  
“I’m not sure what there is to say at the moment, and I’m tired. Maybe in a day or so.” Danny walked passed Steve for the kitchen but Steve caught his wrist. Danny stared at the way Steve’s fingers pressed against his skin, felt his traitor heart beat a little faster even though he wanted to stay mad at Steve for at least another five minutes. The stillness of the house hung around them like a blanket shielding them into their own little world.

“Please, don’t go.” The wounded look on Steve’s face stabbed Danny through and through and he came to a decision. It was stupid to keep up a pretence of anger and hurt when what they both obviously wanted was to start over. It wasn’t as though Danny could actually consider leaving, or giving up the infuriating bastard, so what was the point of dragging out the inevitable make-up scene? But for that to happen Danny had to clean the slate. He steeled himself for the potential fallout and took a deep breath. 

“I don’t want to go,” Danny looked at Steve’s hand holding him gently yet insistently, “but before I can stay I need to tell you something.”  
“No, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. I’m only interested in this moment and what comes next.”

Danny ripped his hand away, saw the shock on Steve’s face, let the anger bubble up to fuel his words. “You selfish, bastard. What about the fact I might need to say it, huh? You every think of that?”

“Okay, okay,” Steve put his hands up in front of him, “Danny, please, whatever you need.” 

“Whatever I need?”

“I just want you back.”

Danny huffed. Wanted to slap Steve around his stupid handsome face. “You never lost me in the first place, other than in your own head. I’m not the one who left.”

“So what’s the problem, why are we fighting?” Steve reached for him again but Danny stepped back.

“I fucked someone else, okay.” There, he’d said it. Got it out there where it needed to be. Steve just stared. “Not Gabby, not Rachel, a guy.” Nothing. Maybe a small sigh, but Steve was so still it seemed like he wasn’t even breathing. “I fucked another guy because I needed to feel something, needed to know I still could.” And there it was, finally. Steve looked too shocked to be angry or jealous. “You broke me,” Danny said. “Left a fucking note! Refused my calls. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Steve shook his head. Jumped to his feet and started pacing. “I couldn’t…I knew you’d want to help, and I couldn’t risk it…risk you.”  
“Newsflash, McGarrett, I’m a grown fucking man, and I’m your partner, and I fucking love you. I should have been by your side.” Danny’s voice started to break. “I should have had your back.”

Steve slumped back on to the arm of the sofa. “That’s why.” Steve’s voice was no more than a whisper. “Don’t you get it, Danny? You’re my weakness. The one thing Wo Fat can exploit, the one way left in this world he can get to me. If anything happened to you,” Steve shook his head,” and you have Grace, I couldn’t…I’d rather…” Steve’s eyes burned through Danny’s cool, heated his skin and stoked a growing need deep in his belly. They should be all over each other. They should be laughing and fucking, reacquainting themselves with each other’s bodies. But Danny couldn’t, not yet. His memory of Deeks still hung in the air preventing him from taking that step to wrap his arms around Steve in the way he wanted. To check he was really there and all in one piece. To check his pulse, punch his face in, kiss him stupid and then fuck him senseless. 

“Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“About him. Don’t you care?”

“What do you want me to say, Danny? Care? Of course, I fucking care.” Steve was shouting, arms waving, and it was a relief. A relief to see he did feel something after all. “Do I want to know who he is? No, because on dark nights, when I don’t know what you’re doing I might just look him up to rip his fucking head off so you can’t ever go back to him. Is that what you want to hear? It’s done. It can’t be undone.” He paused, took a breath that shuddered through his chest. “It’s not as though I left you many options,” he said, his voice back to almost a whisper, “and no, I’m not proud of the way I’ve handled this but, Danny, you have to know I love you. Whatever else you think of me, at least take that much.” Steve tapped his leg furiously against the floor, his gaze locked to a space a few inches beyond his foot. “And if you want to keep seeing him, if it’s good for you, I…I’ll learn to live with it, and you have Gabby anyway, just…maybe you can leave something for me?” Steve looked up, raw and as open as every Danny had ever witnessed before. “I can’t lose you. You’re all I have left. You’ve got a big heart, Danny, maybe there’s still a little room for me?”

Danny’s anger burned white and dangerous. He actually wanted to put his hands on Steve’s throat and throttle him until he got it through his thick skull. “Room for you? You still don’t fucking get it, do you? I don’t have anything left to give you, Steve. Or anyone else for that matter. You already have it all. But if you want to keep it then things are going to have to change because I can’t do this anymore.”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just tell me what to do to make this right.” Exhaustion coloured Steve’s words but Danny fought off the guilt. If they didn’t have this out, it would fester and eat away at both of them and Danny couldn’t live like that. He needed to know Steve was serious. He needed to know they were on the same page rather than just hoping, and Steve still didn’t get it. 

“I can’t spread myself around, Steve. I don’t have it in me. All the secrets, half-truths, it’s not me. If I mean anything to you at all, if you seriously want this then it has to be just us. No more Cath, no more Gabby, fuck knows what you’ve been up to the last year, the last month, how many guys you’ve fucked, but until yesterday I hadn’t touched another guy since we started this, haven’t been near anyone you didn’t know about, and I waited, I tried to be patient. I hoped you’d come around eventually and at least fucking call to let me know you were still alive. The whole fucking world was about to go into meltdown and you weren’t there. I was just so lost.”

Steve crowded Danny into a hug, and Danny finally let go of the tension and slumped against Steve’s chest. “I’m so sorry, Danno.” He pressed a kiss to Danny’s temple, soft and warm, and it was more than Danny could take. He searched out Steve’s mouth with hot, hungry kisses, his hands kneaded and stroked, and he whimpered at the feel of Steve’s calloused hands under his shirt. He let himself be carried away on the heady wave until he realised, Steve hadn’t agreed to anything, still hadn’t committed. Bastard. He pulled back, slapped Steve’s hand away from his zipper, and ignored the confused look on Steve’s face. 

“I need to know, before we do this…that from now on it’s just me. I won’t share you, Steve. I’m not strong enough.”

Steve’s face lit up with the brightest smile Danny and seen in a long time. “It’s always been just you, Danny.”

“But…” Danny groaned as Steve moved in to kiss his neck. “I don’t understand. You and Cath…”

“I didn’t... we’ve never been serious. We…” Steve rested his forehead against Danny’s. “I didn’t think you’d want anything more than what we already had.”

Danny batted him away. Bile rose in his throat. He felt sick. How could Steve even think that? It was Danny’s turn to pace. “You are completely beyond help. You need serious therapy. How many times did I tell you I was uncomfortable going out with Gabby, that I felt I was leading her into something I didn’t want, how many times, Steve?”

“That doesn’t mean you’d want to go all out for me. Not everyone is as accepting of two guys hooking up, Danny. You have Gracie. What would Rachel think?”

“I don’t give a _fuck_ what Rachel thinks. My god, I can’t believe you would think I’m…what, embarrassed, need to hide in the closet?” Steve looked like he was about to cry. Danny grabbed him, and hugged tight. “Fuck, you’re such a god damned idiot. Anyone has a problem with us, they need to see me and I’ll knock them into next week.”

Steve choked out a laugh, relaxed into Danny’s embrace. “So we’re fixed?”

“That depends on what you’re going to do about Catherine.”

“I’ve already told her about us. But I’ll call her and say we’re taking it to the next level.” Steve placed a gentle kiss on Danny’s lips. “What about Gabby?”

“Gabby knows too,” Danny admitted. “I don’t have it in me to cheat, Steve. I couldn’t go out with her, even for a coffee without letting her know we had something going on.”

“And she didn’t mind?”

Danny shrugged, aware of Steve’s hands resting lightly on his hips and tucked under his shirt that Steve had pulled out earlier. He let himself reach out and smooth his hand over Steve’s shoulder. “She said she didn’t mind _yet_. Wouldn’t until she thought we should be stepping it up. She wasn’t exclusive with me, I know she was seeing at least one other guy.”

“Wow, I’d never have thought that about her.” Steve’s thumbs were making circles over Danny’s skin, just above his belt. He seemed oblivious to the movement but it pushed Danny into a hyper-state skirting the beginnings of arousal. 

“We live in a modern age,” Danny sighed, “and she was a thoroughly modern woman.” The air was finally moving freely through Danny’s lungs, the tension had dissipated and the world started to shift into normal. Danny nuzzled at Steve’s neck and breathed him in. He smelled clean with a hint of male muskiness that made Danny want to run his tongue along Steve’s neck and nibble beneath his ear. Arousal burned slow and deep in Danny’s gut and he traced lines over Steve’s chest, taking in the planes of muscle under his t-shirt. “But me?” He nipped at Steve’s throat and revelled in the small sounds that escaped as Steve let his head fall back. “I’m an old-fashioned guy.” A strange look swept over Steve’s face and Danny frowned, pulled back to take it in. He’d not seen that particular expression before and now was not the time for new discoveries. “What is it?”

Steve shook his head and smiled. He looked resolved about something, like the final puzzle piece had just snapped into place in his worldview. “I just love you, that’s all.” Steve kissed Danny’s cheek and took a step back, clearing his throat. His eyes crinkled and his grin was blinding as he slipped to one knee and took hold of Danny’s hand.

“What the fuck are you doing? Get up this minute.” Danny’s heart pounded in his chest and he gulped in a few deep breaths as he watched Steve stroke his hand. 

“Daniel Williams, will you promise to be eternally mine?”

Confusion clouded Danny’s brain. Was that a proposal or the start of wedding vows? “What?” 

“Marry me, Danno. It can be just us forever. Me, you…Gracie on weekends, as a real family.” Steve’s confidence waivered and he squeezed Danny’s hand. “It can be a long engagement if you need more time, but please, say yes.”

 _A long…?_ It was official. Steve was completely insane? “Don’t you think we’ve had a long enough freaking engagement as it is?”

“Is that a yes?”

Danny chuffed a short laugh. He felt dizzy, no, delirious. He must be completely off his rocker as well. He certainly wasn’t in his right mind for even contemplating, let alone entertaining the images running through his head. But what else was there to say given the last month and the startling reality that a life without Steve was a life Danny didn’t want to think about? He looked at Steve, and ran his free hand over Steve’s hair and along his jaw. “I think it might be.” 

“Fuck, Danny, just give me a straight yes or no.” Steve’s hands were trembling where they wrapped around Danny’s. He looked so freaking adorable, so nervous, and his eyes searched Danny’s for some hint, some clue as to the real answer Danny was holding back. And in that moment the last month seemed irrelevant to the bigger picture of their relationship, and their life together, and Danny knew—he knew deep in his heart, that had somehow found its way back into his chest—that they were both finally home. 

He let the smile spread across his face and squeezed Steve’s hands. “Yes, Steven, I will marry you.”

Steve let his forehead fall against Danny’s stomach. “Thank fuck for that. I nearly had a heart attack here.” 

Danny pulled him to his feet. “Come here, you big goof.” This time the kiss was full of patience and forgiveness, of understanding, and most importantly, it tasted like the first kiss of forever.


End file.
